The Heretic

by David Drake

  Jacobson looked up. “Oh, it’s you, Dashian. I didn’t recognize you. You’re as dark as a Delta man.”

  “Gunpowder residue,” Abel replied. He turned to Kruso. “What do you think?”

  “Eastways by northern run tha,” Kruso said. “Nah good.”

  “They’ll hit the Canal levee and find it easy going from there,” Abel said. “We’ll have to catch them.”

  A look of incredulity came over Jacobson’s face. “Dashian, we require an escort back to safety,” he said. He forced himself to sit up straighter. “You will see to a First Family before you go chasing Redlanders.”

  “You’re entirely correct,” Abel said. “But we are woefully underequipped to protect you and might prove a danger instead, drawing fire your way. Your escort will be along shortly.”

  He began to turn when Jacobson reached up and grabbed his left arm. His own hand tightened around the dagger hilt.

  It would be so easy. And so easy to justify.

  Instead he let go of the knife and deliberately raised his rifle and pointed it into Jacobson’s chin.

  “Let go, citizen,” Abel said in a low, but strong, growl.

  “You’ll pay for this, Dashian,” Jacobson said. “I won’t forget that you abandoned us. These men are First Family, too.”

  “I don’t suppose you heard that the Militia had been called up?” Abel said. “You weren’t sitting out the action, now, were you?”

  “You can’t be seriously holding that against us. If we hadn’t escaped, we’d be dead. You know that,” Jacobson said. “Do you still not realize who I am?” But Abel felt the man’s grip loosening on his sleeve.

  Abel pulled his arm away and lowered his rifle.

  “Your niece, Loreilei, how is she these days? Have you heard news from Lilleheim?”

  Jacobson looked blank for a moment, then he smiled. “Yes, the one you claim to have saved.”

  “Claim?”

  “Or found wandering about in the Redlands,” he continued. “Something like that?”

  “I asked how she was.”

  “The child seems . . . the worse for wear,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Abel said. “Now quickly, do you have any weapons?”

  “Guns? That would be nishterlaub.”

  “Do you have any guns?”

  “The Cremoys still have . . . that pistol, I believe.” He glanced toward the others.

  “And buck and ball?”

  “I shot it all up hunting, but we found some inside,” said one of the brothers. “We could reload.”

  “I suggest you do so,” Abel said. “There’s no telling who you might run into out here next.”

  Without another word, he stalked past the three drunken men and entered the tavern. In the back was a closed wooden door. The key, of wood, had been inserted, the lock turned, and then the key broken off.

  It took three of them to break down the door. When they did, the women flowed out. All were cut, some disfigured grotesquely. Others had gotten off more lightly, but all would live scarred from this day forth.

  They gathered around Eloise, who walked stiffly out and looked at Abel, up at him, for she was a small woman. “You should have come sooner,” she said.

  “I apologize,” Abel said. “Please try to forgive us.”

  “Forgive?” said Eloise. For a moment, a look of rage passed over her ravaged features. But then she seemed to get a grip on herself, or at least her outward expression. “Yes, all right.”

  “The men who left you locked in there are out on the veranda,” he said. “What do you want me to do with them?”

  Eloise shook her head. Blood dripped onto her already bloody collar when she did so. She glanced over into the corner. There lay the pile of men’s bodies, thrown like so much stovewood, against the wall. A puddle of blood encircled the sight, and here and there a splayed arm or leg poked out of the mound, dripping blood into the general puddle. Eloise considered this sight for a long moment, and Abel patiently stood waiting for her answer.

  “Better leave them there,” she finally said. “Looks like I need to hang on to what’s left of my paying customers.”

  Outside, Jacobson stared at him as he walked past. Abel paused.

  “You saw that in there?” he said.

  Jacobson said nothing. He looked up balefully at Abel.

  “What was I supposed to do?” he said. “They were already dead.”

  “Yes,” Abel said. “The women are not dead, though, not most of them. They may want a word with you.”

  Abel took his own pistol from its place tucked in his belt. “I’ll want this back,” he said. He turned it, butt first, and held it out toward Jacobson.

  After a moment’s consideration, Jacobson reached up and took the pistol. He held it in his hand as if it were a poison animal, but he kept it nonetheless. “Thank you, Dashian,” he said.

  “You are First Family,” Abel answered with a shrug. And you are her husband, the woman’s. Which means Mahaut’s status, her position in the Land, is attached to you, depends on you. For now. “Besides, those women in there may decide to kill you yet.”

  He turned to Kruso, who was looking at him incredulously. He shrugged. “Let’s get after them.” He pulled on the reins and kicked his dont into motion. Within seconds they were galloping away across the levee. Abel couldn’t help but feel the odd certainty that the muzzle of his own pistol was pointed at his back. It was only when he knew he was out of its range that the feeling began to fade.

  5

  The trail led up to the levee. Perhaps the band of Blaskoye would be cautious, feel their way, not move with the extreme speed of which they were capable. But eventually they would come upon the boys holding the donts, the pack train. Would look down into the basin and see the Scouts fighting, their back to the danger from behind.

  It would not change the results of the day. Not now. But many more of his men, his Scouts, would die.

  They made the top of the levee and turned east. Abel urged the donts past a gallop and into the beasts’ two-legged stride. They couldn’t keep this up for long, but maybe it would be enough. The dont stags, as if sensing the urgency, the coming action, raised their neck and shoulder feathers erect, in the mode of full animal aggression. They thundered down the levee, Abel in the lead. Abel pulled away a bit, Spet sensing its rider’s urgency and speeding up all the more.

  Have to overtake. Have to—

  Abel, came Center’s voice. You must not allow instinct to overcome clear thinking. You must be aware of the possibility of alternate outcomes—

  He will kill my Scouts, shoot them in the back!

  Faster still, his dont’s breathing hole expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting as the animal gasped for air.

  And then—

  Cries from behind him. Gunshots.

  Can’t stop, cannot—

  But he did. Yanked the dont up. Spun around.

  Ambush.

  The Blaskoye had lain in wait on the Canal side of the levee, hidden by the shrubs that grew along the water’s edge, and behind piles of tree trimmings left behind when the willows had been felled for the creation of the chevaux-de-frise.

  They’d attacked headlong into the Scouts’ flank, running through them, shooting, cutting when possible, over the top of the levee. And now Abel could see them stop their descent of the other side of the levee, the rice basin side, wheel their mounts, and head back up for another pass.

  Amazing, that control, he couldn’t help thinking. They are the best dontback riders I have ever seen.

  But these were Scouts the Redlanders were attacking, not men trained only to fight in regimented lines, men who were untested in battle. This was the line. The men who kept the Land safe. They had fired and been fired upon. They had seen their brothers die in the Redlands. And they understood this enemy. Perhaps better than the enemy understood himself, even.

  The clash was furious. They two groups came together, and the
Scouts had already, almost to a man, reloaded. They managed to get off a ragged volley at the approaching Blaskoye. Several Redlanders fell.

  Then out came the knives. The spiked cudgels. The daggers and pistols. The two groups were among one another, fighting, hacking, killing.

  Abel kicked his mount and charged toward the fray.

  He had pulled maybe a hundred paces ahead.

  Now fifty. Twenty.

  From the cloud of struggling men, a form emerged. He was riding an enormous dont hell for leather straight at Abel.

  It was Rostov. Those bone-white teeth. That beard. He was sure of it.

  Rostov’s rifle was attached to the saddle ring to his side.

  Must need loading.

  His hand was snaking under the collar of his clothing, as if he were feeling for something there.

  Abel took aim with his carbine.

  Go for the dont. Center was right, and I’ve been a fool enough, as it is, getting caught out ahead. Don’t try for a special shot. Take out the largest target.

  He charged forward, took aim.

  He entered that moment of complete concentration he had known before when shooting from dontback. It was a matter of matching your heartbeat to the beating strides of the beast. You could do it. At least, you could imagine that was what you were doing, and this would calm you, center you, and—

  Bam!

  His shot struck Rostov’s dont directly in the breast. The animal ran forward a couple of steps, but then pulled up short, threw back its head. It reached down with its powerful jaw and scraped at the spot where the bullet had entered.

  Like it’s trying to shoo away a flitternit that’s itching it, Abel thought.

  Then, quickly, the dont’s legs began to wobble. It came up short in its headlong rush toward Abel. It looked over its shoulder at its own back legs.

  What is wrong with these? Abel imagined the beast thinking. They have always carried me before.

  And then it collapsed into the dusty roadway, throwing Rostov forward with its momentum.

  The dont rose once more behind him, but a shot from its rear brought the dont down for all time. Rostov headed toward Abel.

  Abel reached for his pistol.

  Gone. Damn him. Damn Edgar Jacobson. And damn me for a fool!

  Abel charged toward the Blaskoye.

  Rostov pulled at a string tied beneath his robe as he approached.

  What the—

  The string was attached to a pistol. It came up and out of the Blaskoye’s collar and then Rostov had the blunderbuss in his hand. He smiled the toothy smile.

  Almost there.

  Rostov began to run toward him.

  “Dashiaaan!” yelled the Redlander.

  Abel drew his father’s saber.

  Almost there—

  Rostov fired the dragon. It flashed brightly in the wan light of day.

  The ball took Abel in the right side, and he shuddered from the impact. Like a punch, Abel thought. He thought this even as he was spinning from his saddle.

  Falling. Feeling the thud of the ground as the hit traveled through his arm, his shoulder, but rolling with the fall, rolling, gathering himself together, ignoring the pain, the surprise, getting his legs under him—

  To come up standing.

  Abel felt the wound with his left hand. His fingers found blood, but did not sink deep into flesh. He pressed harder. Nothing gave. He was pushing against a rib.

  It’s a scratch, Abel thought. It glanced off my rib.

  Better to be lucky than either strong or smart, Raj said. Better to be lucky than dead.

  A very difficult shot to make at a run and with such a weapon, said Center. The miss is easily explained.

  He should have gone for the dont, Raj growled. The lad will make him pay for that.

  He missed, Abel thought. But he’s still coming.

  Something glinted in the light of the setting sun. Abel looked down.

  Joab’s saber. He picked it up.

  Now Rostov had thrown away his pistol and drawn his knife. It was a knife that had already slit one throat today, perhaps several. It was chrome and steel, two elbs long, cut from the nishterlaub bumper of an ancient groundcar in the Redlands and worked with hardened stones to razor sharpness. It was the ruins of another age, repurposed for blood.

  They met, saber and long knife, in a clash of metal. Rostov brought his down in a vicious arc, and Abel parried. Rostov’s momentum flung Abel back, however, and the Blaskoye pressed the advantage instantly. Another slicing cut from the side, aimed right at Abel’s midsection, and if Abel had not drawn back his stomach, his guts might have been sluicing out over the stubbled field.

  Abel thrust forward desperately with the saber, aiming its point at the Blaskoye’s midsection. Now it was Rostov’s turn to dodge hastily. He didn’t entirely succeed, and the saber bit into the flesh of his hip with an audible grinding noise where it struck bone.

  The Redlander let out a bellow of rage at the strike.

  But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and Rostov turned back to Abel and slashed with his knife.

  Abel parried. Turned. Now his back was to the melee behind him.

  Slashed.

  Abel parried, and his hands buzzed with the bone-shaking blow. It felt as if the small bones of his wrist were shattered, though they must not be, for he still hung on to the saber.

  A stab. Abel brought the saber up just in time to ward the long knife’s point away from his eye.

  The man was bigger than he was, outweighed him by at least two stone.

  This is not going to end well, Abel thought.

  Sweat was running down in his eyes. Or maybe it was blood. He couldn’t tell, didn’t have time to check.

  Another massive side stroke. This time Abel ducked down, the long knife’s edge passing just over the hairs of his head. He thrust out with the saber. Caught the point in Rostov’s shin.

  The Blaskoye danced back, his left shin spouting blood, the flowing white robe clinging to the red wetness on the leg.

  But he wasn’t going down.

  He’s not going down.

  Instead he was advancing again, madness in his eyes, his knife raised and ready to butcher. Abel popped back up, steadied himself, jogged backward, not retreating, but giving himself time to prepare, to meet the advance.

  Then he was falling. Tripped. Falling over backward. And he glanced down even as he fell and saw what it was that had tripped him. Maday’s body.

  He landed hard, and his saber flew away from his hand. And then Rostov leaped over Maday’s splayed form and was standing over Abel.

  What do I have to fight with? I have nothing. I have—

  The obsidian knife. Mahaut’s gift. A plaything with a blade the length of a finger. He reached to his belt to pull it free—

  But Rostov was upon him, straddling him. Abel raised his other hand, whether to fend off or strike, he didn’t know. Rostov batted it away hard. Then, both hands on the hilt of the long knife, he brought it down hard toward Abel’s face.

  At the last possible moment, Abel twisted. The knife plunged past his face, opening his cheek, but sinking point first into the ground. The blow was hard, and the knife sank deep into the muddy levee soil. Deep enough to put Rostov’s hand next to Abel’s ravaged face.

  Abel turned and bit into the Blaskoye’s thumb.

  Bows and muskets, blood and dust—

  Rostov screamed. Abel bit down harder. He had it, the knucklebone of the thumb, between his teeth. Rostov pulled back mightily, as hard as he could.

  You can’t catch me, I’m the Carnadon Man!

  Abel held on to the thumb. He squeezed his jaw muscles tight until they hurt.

  Rostov’s face was the picture of pain and amazement. How could this cause so much pain? He grabbed his own wrist with the other hand, preparing to put all he had into an attempt to yank free.

  Abel bit.

  Rostov shifted his weight forward to get a better grip, to be in a p
osition to spring back and free his thumb.

  Which was all Abel needed. He slid his other hand, the pinned right hand, free from under Rostov’s thigh.

  In that hand was the obsidian dagger.

  He bent his elbow and punched upward. Once, twice.

  Abel felt it when the dagger hit a rib, grazed off, and found the opening between bone.

  The first punch punctured a lung.

  The second found the Blaskoye’s heart.

  Rostov jerked back, pulling the dagger from Abel’s hand and his thumb from Abel’s mouth.

  Red, pumping arterial blood sluiced from the hole around the dagger. It was as if a great dam had broken.

  Blood, blood, and more blood flowed out.

  And, as would a wild dak shot on the hunt, the moment came when the fight within Rostov was over. He didn’t close his eyes. He merely lost focus and wasn’t looking at anything anymore.

  Then he slumped sideways and fell off Abel. Fell for the most part. Abel had to kick himself out from under the one leg that remained over his own torso. But finally he rolled free, pulled himself shakily to his feet. He gazed down at the Redlander.

  And then, on impulse, he knelt beside the man. He put a hand on his head and turned it around, looked into the face. He put two fingers inside Rostov’s mouth, between the white, sharp teeth, and pried the jaw open.

  There it was. On the upper palate. The wafer of Zentrum.

  Rostov had been a man of vision, in his way. Only the visions had been supplied to him and were not his own. Or maybe they were. Maybe Zentrum had only enhanced what the Blaskoye had dreamed he might accomplish.

  Your people might still accomplish it, Abel thought. Only they will have to do it without you.

  Abel stood back up. His side hurt. He’d need to get that tended to, despite its superficiality. He’d seen men die of less.

  You taught me to reason like my enemy, Center, he thought.

  Yes, Center said. That is so.

  And you taught me to know my enemy’s heart, Raj, he thought.

  Aye, lad, Raj replied. What are you getting at?

  I need to know.

  Abel kicked Rostov’s body. Dead. Yes. Really, truly dead.

  He knelt beside the Blaskoye.

  I’ll need the dagger, he thought. I want it, anyway.